Why tailoring rewards hold the key to success
In a world full of impersonal perks, personalised rewards are more desirable than ever. We all receive emails (and occasionally the odd physical card!) thanking us for our loyalty towards a business, making it easy to switch off from the sentiment attached. Your employees are no different. It’s going to take more than a generic ‘thanks’ to get any message across.
Whether you’re saying well done for a fantastic job on a project, congrats for hitting a long service milestone or thank you at the end of the year, personalised rewards are the way forward. They have the potential to lift people up with meaningful boosts and unleash success within an organisation that benefits everyone from employees to C-suite professionals. In fact, 21% of C-suite leaders believe having tailored benefits boosts employee engagement and cuts churn.
So, join us as we delve into why personalised employee rewards are a must-have and the benefits they bring to both your people and your business. We’ve even added top tips for creating a tailored reward programme to make it even easier to boost your people and your business. Enjoy!
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF PERSONALISED REWARDS?
Tailored rewards have the power to boost individuals across your whole business, as each person feels seen and recognised. It’s also that personalisation that helps your employees connect with your business, providing the foundations for many other benefits for both them and your business. So, let’s take a look at a handful of these in more detail and explain why having a personalised reward programme is a no-brainer!
A whopping 87% of employees want features of a recognition programme to be personalised based on their achievements and contributions. It’s clear that while a simple thank you can go a long way, nothing feels better than receiving a truly personalised reward for a job well done. Rather than giving your people generic rewards that will be easily forgotten, you can show them you truly appreciate their efforts with boosts that continue to lift them up time and time again. Not only will this positively impact their emotional wellbeing, but it’ll encourage them to work harder knowing that their efforts are valued.
HELPING PEOPLE FEEL VALUED
21% of C-suite professionals believe tailored rewards have the power to boost employee engagement while simultaneously cutting attrition – and we’re with them on that! Personalised employee rewards help build positive relationships between employees and their businesses, ultimately encouraging people to engage with one another. This also helps create a culture of appreciation in which people can reach their full potential.
BETTER ENGAGEMENT
A bit of friendly competition in your business can help motivate people to try harder and strive for better. By introducing personalised rewards into your business, you can encourage a bit of friendly competition and increase morale by giving your team something desirable to work towards. The best part is that your employees get fantastic rewards and your business gets a boost too!
Boost morale
Personalised rewards can be tied to your company values, enabling you to reinforce desirable behaviours within your team. Whether you’re trying to encourage collaboration, caring or innovation, you can reward your employees when they show they’ve embraced a value. This will go a long way toward creating a positive company culture that benefits both you and your team.
Improved company culture
How do tailored rewards unlock a happy and productive workforce?
Happiness and productivity go hand in hand. When people feel upbeat and excited about their job or workplace, they’re more likely to go the extra mile. Equally, when employees work hard and get the recognition they deserve, they’re sure to feel uplifted.
That’s where rewards come in! 74% of employees say personalised rewards would make them work harder. By rewarding your employees in the moments that matter, you’ll not only give them a sense of achievement, but you’ll also ensure they feel appreciated. And as we know, appreciation goes a long way when it comes to helping people feel happy and productive.
If you start by boosting your people with personalised rewards, you can enjoy watching them flourish while also seeing the many benefits of improved productivity like higher quality work, better collaboration, and increased business success. Amazing, right?
10 tips to create a personalised approach to employee rewards
To unlock the full potential of employee rewards, businesses must get their strategy just right. As it happens, we can help with that! We’ve covered 10 tips below to help HR professionals and C-suite leaders bridge the gap between the current employee reward landscape and the personalised, meaningful recognition that employees desire.
You can’t truly personalise your rewards if you don’t understand exactly what it is that your employees want or need. So, get to know them better! Use surveys and other tools to get feedback from your people to see what rewards they deem valuable. With that insight, you can tailor your strategy to deliver rewards that will resonate with them. Given that a significant proportion of employees are open to a salary cut for more tailored benefits, it should be a priority to find out how you can meet their needs!
1. Understand individual employee needs
As an employer, you’ll know the struggle when it comes to setting up new strategies with limited budgets and resources. But implementing personalised rewards doesn’t have to be super time-consuming or costly. There are plenty of smart reward platforms and tools available which are designed to automatically track employee achievements, career goals and personal milestones. Not only can this free up valuable business resources, but it can help you meet the demand for recognition of individual achievements and contributions by enabling you to customise your rewards, even on a large scale!
2. Leverage technology for personalisation
37% of employees value individual achievement recognition, making every day a good day to publicly acknowledge a wide range of accomplishments within your team. Whether it’s an amazing work anniversary or successful project completion, share the news with your team via a range of communication channels to ensure everyone can celebrate together and help each other feel appreciated.
3. Communicate and celebrate diverse achievements
Flexibility can mean many things, but in this case, we’re talking about making your rewards as easy as possible to deliver and use so you can recognise your people in the moments that matter. You can also go a step further by ensuring that your employees can enjoy their rewards no matter where they are so it’s fair for everyone and they can see you’ve taken their personal circumstances into account. There are so many ways to deliver rewards so you’re sure to find ones that work for your people and your business.
4. Integrate flexibility into rewards
Your employees are all on their own journeys, with different aspirations both personally and professionally. So, what better way to personalise your rewards than by aligning them with people’s goals? You could reward individuals for hitting specific achievements or provide training opportunities for professional goals. Or you could choose rewards that help people do more of the things they enjoy outside of work. Either way, that thoughtful approach is sure to be appreciated by your people and it’ll most likely also encourage them to strive for more.
5. Align rewards with personal and professional goals
Keep your employees engaged and excited about your rewards programme by incorporating seasonal themes, competitions and celebrations. Limited-time campaigns are a simple way to catch people’s attention and motivate them to get involved while they still can. Plus, they help you evolve your strategy and keep it relevant in a manageable way.
6. Regularly refresh reward strategies
When you reward people, ensure that the recognition reinforces your company’s values and culture. This will help you create a culture that is underpinned by desirable actions and behaviours that your employees resonate with. Whether you’re encouraging teamwork, care or trust, you can tailor your rewards to celebrate the best traits of your people, helping them feel valued. This will in turn drive engagement and motivation which benefits everyone.
7. Reinforce values and culture through rewards
The majority of employees desire a personal touch, so an easy way to connect with them and make them feel seen is to customise your communications when you deliver rewards. It could be something as simple as personally addressing them by name, referencing their specific contributions or acknowledging their unique circumstances. It costs nothing to add a personal touch, but it’ll make your rewards that much more valuable to your people!
8. Personalise communications
We all love different things, and your employees are no different. That’s why some of the most powerful rewards are ones that give people the freedom of choice because they get to enjoy the buzz that comes from finding something they genuinely want. By giving your employees shopping vouchers or reward points, you can tailor their rewards enough to be personal but not prescriptive.
9. Offer diverse REWARD options
While wellbeing support should be a non-negotiable rather than a reward, you can go beyond the workplace to elevate your benefits offering and show your employees you prioritise their wellness. By tailoring your rewards to support people’s total wellbeing, you’ll demonstrate an understanding of their life outside work, which is a great way to connect with them and deliver boosts that resonate.
10. Support total wellbeing
Personalising employee rewards: How Boostworks can help
Now you know the benefits of a tailored reward programme and tips for creating one, the next step is putting those ideas to work! Improving and personalising your employee rewards offering doesn’t need to be challenging. With the right expertise and tools, you can boost your people with truly meaningful rewards and enjoy watching them flourish in and out of the office. That’s where we can help.
Not to blow our own trumpet, but we’ve got over 20 years of experience helping fantastic businesses like yours lift their employees up with tailored rewards that deliver the ultimate boosts. Whether it’s reward points that give them the freedom to choose something special or vouchers delivered in personalised emails, we’ve got the solutions and the people know-how to help you say a proper ‘thanks’ to your team in the moments that matter.
Want to find out more? Get in touch today and let’s chat! We’d love to find out more about who you want to recognise and how we can make it happen.
